Political Winners and Losers In the Stimulus Showdown

It was startling to see not a single Republican vote for a bill that the Obama administration once hoped would pass with broad bipartisan support.

For an out-of-power party that's in the midst of a very rough patch, the GOP showed remarkable discipline. To add insult to injury, 11 Dems broke ranks and voted against their freshly minted president. That's a stinging rebuke. It's also politically significant and dramatically heightens interest in the looming Senate vote.

So who are the political winners and losers of this showdown?

REPUBLICANS: Will they be punished for bucking a popular president? Or will they be rewarded by conservatives for finally embracing the small-government principles they seemed to have abandoned in recent years?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Did he miscalculate when he set out to garner broad bipartisan support for his first big initiative? And in the wake of the House vote, is Obama's hope of amassing 80 votes in the Senate still realistic? If Obama fails to get some GOP fingerprints on his bill, does he end up assuming all risk in the event the stimulus doesn't work?

* * * * *

One note on language: Our competitors are saying House members voted "along party lines." But if 11 Republicans had sided with Obama (instead of 11 Democrats defecting from him), would that be described as a "party-line vote"?